DEI/CISUC Seminars
October 17, Wednesday,
13h (sharp),
Room A.5.4. DEI-FCTUC
Invited Speaker: Jácome Cunha
Title: "Explaining Spreadsheets with Spreadsheets"
Abstract: Spreadsheets often change owners and have to be used by people who haven’t created the spreadsheet. This flux often contributes to a lack of understanding, which is a major reason for mistakes in the use and maintenance of spreadsheets. Based on the concept of explanation sheets, we present an approach to make spreadsheets easier to understand and thus easier to use and maintain. We identify the notion of explanation soundness and show that explanation sheets which conform to simple rules of formula coverage provide sound explanations. We also present a practical evaluation of explanation sheets based on samples drawn from widely used spreadsheet corpora and based on a small user study. In addition to supporting spreadsheet understanding and maintenance, our work on explanation sheets has also uncovered several general principles of explanation languages that can help guide the design of explanations for other programming and domain-specific languages.
Short-bio:
Currently, I'm an Assistant Professor at Universidade do Minho, Department of Informatics, and an integrated member of the research center NOVA LINCS. Before I was an Assitant Professor at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. My research is mainly focused on Programming Languages (PLs) and Software Engineering (SE), where I try to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and usability of software. I have contributed with such techniques for spreadsheets, and for improving software energy consumption. I obtained my PhD degree in Computer Science from Universidade do Minho in 2011. I was then a post-doctoral fellow at Universidade do Minho and Oregon State University. I was also an Invited Professor at Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão de Felgueiras - Instituto Politécnico do Porto.